Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-05-21
OF NEWSPAPERS.

est IN the development of the interior
OF NEWSPAPERS.
The San Francisco Call, in commenting
upon newspaper work, says: Newspaper
proprietors will eventually discover the
kind of reading their subscribers want,
and will give it to them without regard to
examples set them by newspapers pub
lished in other cities under different condi-
lions and for different audience" That
depends upon the estimate the proprietor
puts upon the value of the patronage of
classes of readers. If he panders to
vicious taste he will bid for the support of
the vicious, and it is sufficiently large
class, it must be confessed, to afford
good many newspapers material support
But if the proprietor has any ambition
beyond that of immediate money-getting
if he has conscience still quick to the
sense of decency and his duty to his fell
low-men, he will decline to prostitute his
journal to libidinous and erotic tastes or
to make it means for depraving the young
There is no other conclusion than this
be reached, that newspaper which per-
sistently prints smut; which searches for
and dishes up enticingly, matter detailing
amours and vulgar scandals; which pub
fishes from its own correspondents and
writers or others, reading matter that cor
rupts the sensibilities and vitiates the
tastes, reflects the viciousness and de-
pravity of its proprietor.
1t is hollow mockery to contend that the
publisher of such a paper can be pure
in mind and thought, and truly re-
spect his wife and sons and daughters.
He cannot himself be clean in heart while
daily engaged in polluting the atmosphere
OF society by industriously circulating the
most abominable recitals and libidinous
stories, gross and obscene tales, and filling
his columns with the records of lubricity
and bawdiness. Yet that is precisely what
is being done in more than one case.
Indeed, the story comes direct of one of
the CATS local contemporaries, which COM
pels its writers to invent and send to press
coarse and lascivious literature. When
the paper fails to contain such matter
the manager comes down like wolf upon
the fold and exacts of his toilers the pro-
duction Of salacious articles, and if there
is no basis of truth upon which to build
them, they must have recourse to their
fancy. The men rebel, Of course, but are
helpless to resist except at the sacrifice of
the bread that feeds their families.
The defense of such managers is that ct
pays" and that the public demand it. On
the same plane of reasoning it would pay
them better to publish anew the Venus
Miscellany" and reprint from the pages of
the forbidden books. According to such
JUSTIFICATION of means, the departure GER
tainly would "pay," and that portion of
the public to which such matter is ad
dressed would make the consumption of
the printed sheets keep pace with the
ability to produce them.
Says the Call: "There are two particular
respects in which our newspapers on this
coast may be improved More care may
be taken to print nothing in the newspaper
which can offend the most fastidious reader
The expurgation of police reports, and re-
ports of trials involving the relations OF
the sexes may be more thorough than it is.
A newspaper is not published for the use
Of adult males only. 1t lies on tables in
drawing rooms and dining rooms, and i
read by boys and girls. 1t should contain
not line nor a word which a well-bred
person would refrain from using in the So
ciety of young ladies'"
The application of such a code to some
Of the journals of California would require |
a complete revolution of their methods |
and policies, or else the putting up of the |
shutters. Fortunately for the cause of |
journalism it does not lack for protesting
members. The clean newspapers give the |
lie to the cowardly defense of the s,nuttv |
sheets, that they respond only TO |
The public demand. Such journals as
The New York Ereaiag Post, the New York |
Tribune, New York Times, Philadelphia
Record, Cleveland Leader, Boston .Adrer-
iser, several of the Chicago, Cincinnati
and St. Louis papers, and an army of jour
nails throughout the East and majority
If those in San Francisco, and the very
arge majority of those of interior Califor-
Tia refuse TO cater to the bawdy taste or
participate in the business of sending into
he family to be read by sons and
daughters wives and mothers, words
which, if the author of the iascivious
literature ventured to utter in the pres
nee of his clients family, would cause to
'e visited upon him by its head such
hastisement as would put his life in peril.
1t is not to be denied that these salacious
ournals have their influence. They are
cad by a class all too large, with avidity;
hey poison the social atmosphere they
arden the sensibilities, corrupt the tastes
f youth, excite the passions and directly
cad on to vice and criminality. Concern
ng the publishers of ell such indeceHey,